VideoSpin

It’s got the same workflow as our Studio family of applications, although it isn’t nearly as fully featured. (But hey, it’s free.)

I like the workflow. If you download it, run the tutorial in the middle of the window to learn about the album, the player, and the timeline.

Go ahead, download it and watch the tutorial. I’ll wait. (Hmm. It took a few minutes for me to install it. Our server’s a little slow.)

Did it? OK. Then:

How to make an AMV with VideoSpin

1. Chose your music and your show. It’s best if they match pacing and feeling, like U2 and Ergo Proxy or GitS, or Ayumi Hamasaki’s Beautiful Day and Kamichu. Get the media onto your computer. (Legally, of course.)

2. Go to the Music tab in the album, find your song, and drag it to the bottom track, the music track.

3. Switch to the Video tab in the album. If your video file has multiple scenes inside, double-click on it in the album to see the scenes within. Select some clips and drag them to the video track on the timeline. (Do the same with images, if you want to use them, too.)

4. You can trim and move clips right on the timeline by dragging them around, or dragging their edges in or out. Use the music track’s waveform to help guide you along with the pacing of the music.

5. You can liven things up a little bit by dragging titles (the third tab down) from the album to the title track. Then double-click on the title on the track to open it up and edit it.

6. Use the Transition tab on the album to add transitions to give a little more mood or to liven up photos. Don’t get crazy. A couple of fades go a long way, there, Spielberg.

7. When you’re happy with your project, click on the “Make Movie” tab at the top, and write your movie to file or upload it to the web.

VideoSpin isn’t perfect, but most of what I don’t like about it is available in Studio. For example, you can see what I think of the fact that VideoSpin doesn’t support track locking.